Sankoh returns to Freetown

Former Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, who left the country in defiance of a UN Security Council travel ban, arrived back in Freetown on Monday, a UN spokesman in New York said.

Sankoh had travelled to South Africa but his visa was withdrawn on 19 February after the UN Security Council Committee on Sanctions determined that he had violated a Security Council travel ban imposed in June 1998 on leading members of the RUF and the former military junta, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Sankoh arrived in Abidjan on 21 February.

Sankoh has rejected allegations that his recent visit to South Africa was made for the purpose of buying arms in exchange for diamonds.

"We did not preach against corruption and a rotten system only to turn around and corrupt ourselves to the detriment of the people of Sierra Leone," Sierra Leone Web cited Sankoh as saying in a 24 February letter to the moral guarantors of the Lome peace accord.

Information Minister Julius Spencer told IRIN on Tuesday that Sankoh had told the government of Sierra Leone that he would produce evidence proving that his trip to South Africa was for medical reasons. Spencer said that he was unable to comment on whether Sankoh had travelled to South Africa to purchase weapons.